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One Charter to Rule Them All
Our unit structure and leadership requirements create artificial barriers to providing the most effective Scouting programs in many settings, particularly in rural communities and at small churches or organizations with small to mid-sized units. Let’s build on one of our greatest strengths: the chartered organization concept.

Recommendation: Issue organizations one charter for all of their Scouting units and each organization has one Scouting Committee that oversees and supports all units they have.

1) A chartering organization has one “Scouting Committee” regardless of the number of units it operates. The single Scouting Committee is authorized to operate Cubs, Scouts, Varsity and Venturing units (just like a pack can and should operate Tigers, Bears, Wolves, and Webelos). If they have large, complex units, they can have sub-committees for the pack, troop and crew.
2) The chartering organization completes one charter per year that includes all youth in all of their units: Cubs through Venturing.
3) When the chartering organization completes the annual charter renewal, they indicate which programs they will offer (Cubs, Scouts, Varsity, Venturing), must meet the direct-contact leadership requirements for each, and must pay $20 per unit they charter. The fees do not change.
4) A boy joins Cub Scouts as a Tiger and can continue seamlessly through the various Scouting programs at his chartering organization until he leaves. He completes an application only one time during his entire Scouting career, unless he moves to a unit at a different chartering organization, in which case he transfers.
5) The various programs meet separately as they do now with separate direct-contact leaders. The program does not change.
6) Reduce the major barriers between our programs so that it is easy to transition from one program without dealing with paperwork and process. Make it natural and easy for a youth to progress from Cubs to Scouts to Venturing (and Varsity for LDS units).

Our unit structure is overwhelming in rural communities and at small churches or organizations, particularly if they want to offer multiple units (a pack, troop, and crew, for example). Our system requires us to recruit a committee and leadership for every unit. Every unit needs a CC, MC’s, COR, unit leader, asst. unit leader, etc. In many settings (rural, small town, central cities, LDS wards, etc.) it is difficult to recruit the necessary persons for single units, let alone multiple units. Many end up serving in name only.

You can have the same person registered as CC of 2 or more units, but this gets complex requiring multiple applications, approvals, multiple mailings, etc.

Are these systems necessary for a quality Scouting program? In many settings they add nothing to the integrity or quality of the program and, in fact, keep us from expanding the program. We are constantly attempting to work around our own system by having leaders carry multiple registrations, etc.

For example, why should a small LDS ward with 10 Cub Scouts, 8 Boy Scouts 6 Varsity Scouts and 6 Venturers be required to have 4 CC’s, 4 advancement chairs, 4 treasurers, etc., etc. Why not have one committee for their entire Scouting program? Then a volunteer can fill out one application and be the advancement chair for their entire Scouting program within their organization? You CAN work around our system to do this, but our system does not easily support the volunteer, the commissioner or district executive in doing this.

Why do we put our charter partner and their volunteers (and our commissioner and district executive) through the torture of completing 4 separate charter renewal processes? It should be one charter and one committee for all of a chartering organization’s units.

One Charter to Rule Them All!
Comments
awatson 5 months ago
I think this is an excellent idea. I think it will especially help give us a better sense of our retention rate and it may also help us decrease the number of youth who are accidently dropped off of recharters when moving up through the program.

For our LDS units, I think it would especially help with the consistent problem of 11year old Scouts being dropped off of recharters between pack and troop registration.
Alex Tyms 5 months ago
The formation of one Scouting Committee should be a "No-Brainer."

Having one Scouting group should lead to better communications between units and ease transition from Cub Scouting to Boy Scouting to Venturing.

We already require this for the Chartered Representative position. Why not the committee?
Charles Howard-Gibbon 5 months ago
I heartily agree with Tim's posting above -- in fact, I had thought about this myself many times. In my experience, the membership retention and volunteer retention is always better when boys are graduated through a program where are the parts are in sync with one another, and the leaders and adults of the different program levels are part of the same "Scouting family". Having separate unit committees under the same chartered organization is an obstacle to unity of purpose and simple communication.

Two benefits to this approach which is implied in this method:

Most units within one chartered organization only really need one treasurer, one secretary, one popcorn chair, etc. However, if the program level units were really large (lots of youth), this method still allows a consolidated unit committee to have two or more people splitting a function (for example, a Cub Scout advancement coordinator and a Boy Scout advancement coordinator).

The second benefit is obvious -- having one "Scouting family" with a continuos roster of youth and adults. Youth could be rolled up to the next level of the same basic organization -- unless the individual youth and his parents wish to transfer to another chartered organization, which would still be a personal prerogative.

But finally, going back to the heart of the question, there is no really good, necessary reason to have two or more separate committees within the same chartered organization. When organizing two or more units in most churches, urban settings, and rural settings, expecting those chartered organizations to support/sponsor two or more separated Scouting programs is a "deal-killer". For 25 years, I have informed volunteers of their option to consolidate the committees whenever possible, and those who have done it have always thanked me for keeping it simple.

So simple would be better. Allow each chartered organization to have a single unit committee, and then allow for division of labor within the committee according to the needs and desires of those involved. And making the charter renewal process simpler for everyone.
Mark Saxon 5 months ago
I like this idea because it eliminates duplication and redundancy which is something that is slowing down this organization at present and confounding volunteers. The one drawback I can see might result from the treasurer end. If you had one bank account and one group writing checks you could conceivably encounter a situation where the Pack is raising all the money and the troop is spending more than its fair share when it comes to gear or expenses. I know we are all guided by the Scout Oath and Law but I have already seen this happen in my district with units that double dip committee members and has caused friction between adults. How could we keep this from happening besides mandating Scout accounts?
Marie Rice 5 months ago
Agreed. The charter paperwork tends to be some of the most confusing in our organization. Any way we can minimize that barrier for a chartered partner would be great. And wouldn't it be great to be able to tell a current chartered partner looking at chartering another unit to fill out their "full family" of Scouting that they don't need to recruit additional volunteers or fill out additional paperwork? What a great way to gain membership ground!
Roger Chatell 4 months ago
A novel and well stated proposal. When I was at the World Jamboree, I learned that this is simular to other countries that have the programs for all ages in a town (or chartered partner for our purposes) in what they call a "section". The youth joins at a young age in the Cub program, and just grows into older programs as the years pass, continuing in his "section". He joins the section, and the progression from Cubs to Scouts is as smooth as we might consider a Wolf becoming a Bear. We could make that work here in the BSA, but with a major effort from the National Council down.
John Garrett 4 months ago
Wow, what a great way to improve our customer-focus with our chartered partners! We've all thought about it every year when we recharter our multiple-unit sponsors, but Tim has connected the dots very well. This will also make it much easier to upsell a Venture Crew to a unit sponsor who already has a Pack and a Troop!
Fran Callahan 4 months ago
I agree that the one charter rule would streamline the process considerably. I think that this would also help distribution of Scouting Magazine and its various inserts...presently a troop leader gets troop inserts and when he/she is multipled into the pack a Cubmaster, does not receive the cub info.

I do not want to complicate the process (this is supposed to streamline!!!!) BUT
I am rather concerned about the possibility of having too few leaders necessary to complete a charter. In rural communities the paperwork to charter etc can be overwheleming..I am concerned about the large packs/ troops being serviced by one committee with a CR, CC and two MCs...alot of work for leaders that could be overseeing over 100 youth in three programs. I agree with the idea of sub committees but in order to charter perhaps the cub,scout and crew person (sub committeee) must be listed in order to charter. Along the idea if there are more than 50 cubscout aged biys there must be MC for cubs indicated...similar to a DL needed for chartering. If the charter leadership committee is too small, there is the possibility for burnout and adult turnover without experienced replacements.
geichste 4 months ago
I have long advocated the "seamless memberhsip" idea. I agree that a parent's signature (indicating that they are aware that their son has joined Scouting-- or another phase-- I don't think we need another application. I think a spreadsheet with parent and leader signature would work just as well and save the BSA $$$thousands in printing applications.

Same true for adult leaders.

Basically, this is what we do when renewing a charter. Names on a list and signatures.
bjohnson 3 months ago
This is a very good idea. This would help LDS Councils with the scanning of application. It would make it worth the money to purchase the scanners. Scanning 1 or 2 applications at a time just does not make if productive for us.
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